What does Christmas mean to You?

seamus

Rights lads and lassies, this is something that seems to occur to me every year. I'm just interested now to see what other people think is the meaning of Christmas nowadays.

Are you a pessimist (who'd consider himself a realist )? I.e. "Christmas is a once noble celebration, now hijacked by profiteers, which is just an annual event to stuff their pockets under the pretence of love."

Or are you a modernist? I.e. "Christmas is still good and rooted in its basic ideals, but the religious side has been lost, for good or worse."

Or are you an old romantice? "Christmas is the same as it always has been, Jesus Christ, giving and loving all rolled into one big day."

I've included a poll out of my own curiosity as to what people do on Christmas day as regards mass....

I'm somewhere between a pessimist and a modernist. For me, Christmas is just a warm, fuzzy time, when you get to spend time just relaxing and having some craic with friends/family and taking time out of life to do all that spirit of brotherhood stuff that you're usually too busy to do. Presents, for me, are just tokens. It's nice to give and get, but I couldn't care less if none of my family got each other anything and my girlfriend and I didn't get each other anything (Obviously I'd feel left out if I was the only one who didn't get anything ). That's not important. This sounds all bullsh1tty and brotherhoody but it's true. IMO, too, Christmas has nothing to do with Christ anymore. It was based on all that, but it's been warped, so much that it doesn't matter what you call it anymore, Christmas, xmas, Channukah(sp), "The Holidays", it all means the same thing. (I'm aware Channukah is Jewish but was only made as a counterattack to xmas). They all refer to this time of year (for me).

Unfortunately, what I see from other people is the whole "OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD, I have to get everyone presents or they'll think I'm a big humbug and I'll have no friends." Which is obviously crap. Christmas isn't about appearing to have the Christmas spirit. You can show you have the spirit simply by your actions. And people who do the token thing by going to mass on Christmas day, when the rest of the year they don't even consider it. Why bother? As long as you're being in the spirit, you've done all you need to do. That's IMO, because I think religion is dead, but Christmas is great.

And the last question.....why do people only feel like (maybe even only tolerate) being nice to others at Christmas? Fine, you can't be as happy and all smiles as people perpetrate at xmas, but surely it can't be that difficult to keep it up year round, as opposed to just 'token' smiles and nods and greetings to strangers at Christmas.

Have I made any sense? Probably not...but I'm still interested in other's views....

Gordon

I feel the same as you Seamus, I see it as one of the few real holidays as opposed to holydays in the year.

I never think of little baby Jesus on the day, it is just an excuse for a celebration and we all need at least one celebration in the year that we can all enjoy together. I guess it is just a communal party day. I don't think anyone around me sees it as a time to be nice to people as these people are always nice. Maybe I am blessed with good people around me.

Christmas means - you can all get locked together. Mind you, thats what New year means too!

mike65

Where's the atheist option?

Christmas means nothing positve for me, I have two days off so nothing to gain there! I dont have children so no joy for/from them.

All public services go to pot for two weeks, garages are closed when you need them (I bet my car develops a problem on the 24th at 5 pm!).

The consumerist avalanche makes me sick frankly. Yes I'm a ba-humbug merchant...Nope I get nothing out of Christmas, except
slippers. :eek:

Mike.

azezil

I go to mass, its more of a tradition now-a-days. I like the whole family get together, get to see relations i wouldn't be bothered seeing during the rest of the year. Its a good laugh, the presents are a bonus but not necessary.

Beruthiel

much the same as yourself Seamus and Gordie, it's lovely to just sit back with those who are close to you, parties with friends before hand and then just eat, drink, movies and basically be exceedingly lazy... I love it!

Talliesin

I voted for the fourth option, though my religion isn't all that "organised".
"Disorganised" would sometimes be more appropriate

DapperGent

I'm an Atheist. So I went for the Atari option.

I still take the good things from Christmas: spending time with and thinking about the people close to you, being generous towards the people you love, having time to rest and think about the year gone by, enjoying the good mood most people are in and playing with toys while pretending to help children assemble them.

For me Christmas has moved beyond being anything as grotesque as a religious holiday, where one thanks a non-existant entity for things you made yourself.

The point of Christmas is other people, it always has been and hopefully always will be.

leeroybrown

This year I'll be a cross between option 3 and option 6.

Normally it's option 6 but visiting relatives generally means being dragged to mass. And it's far less awkward if you let yourself be dragged.

tHE vAGGABOND

christmas to me means going home to Ireland and getting arseholed for 2 weeks with seamus's two older brothers

lbgilchrist

What I resent about Christmas ... at least the way it's practiced over here in the US... is that all the hustle and bustle, decorating, buying, conflicting memories of Christmas past, etc that really inters with the time just before the new year ... when you should be reflecting on the past year and thinking about the next. (Lots of people over here get seriously depressed this time of year) If I had my way, Christmas would be celebrating with a symbolic house cleaning getting rid of all the accumulated junk you've acquired over the past year ... donating what you don't need. And try to create a real time of reflection and self-awareness. In some ways that’s partly the Puritan in my thinking.

I do go to mass on Christmas and at other times, but for me it’s just being alone in the crowd and it a nice to do a little thinking, but that's certainly not for everyone.

Christmas is a monster, not because of the religious aspects but because of the big noisy secular machine it's become.

- Lee

sunbeam

In some parts of Ireland 'spring cleaning' (for want of a better term) is actually a pre-Christmas tradition.

I don't mind the hustle and bustle so much, but the whole 'designer Christmas' thing with the obligatory perfectly matching 'tasteful' monotone decorations etc. really annoys me. I'm far happier to put up the various gaudy baubles that kids in the family made at school over the years-at least they bring back happy memories.

I'm looking forward to an elongated holiday this year as it is the first time in over a decade that I won't be rushing back to college/work on January 1. I don't practice any formal religion, but find the solstice to be quite a spiritual time, especially being back on the west coast which can be beautiful in a kind of bleak and windswept way. For me it is a time to rest and reflect as well as engaging in a bit of the usual overindulging. I really hate the big comedown after Christmas though....

Typedef

Being an athiest, I refuse to go to mass, I don't subscribe to god, Jesus, Mohamad, let alone trans-substanciation.

I go to mass when there is a funeral, mostly because that is the custom in Ireland and it would be disrespectful to the deceased's relatives not to do so, (if I were expected to go).

What I won't do on the occasions where I have to be 'seen' to be in mass is (a) pretend I am praying (b) pretend I believe in trans-substanciation (c) pretend I subscribe to the notion of organised religon or any kind of omnipotent being called 'god'.

I find the notion of simply 'having faith' aka deciding god exists is in fact insulting to any pretences of understanding logic or the burdon of proof I might have.

Simply put and rather sadly for 'believers', if one (I) simply believe that two plus two in fact amount to five, I will still be incorrect.
No matter how many people I may try to convince that two plus two equals five, because I have made a 'leap of faith' I will still be wrong and since I can't 'prove' beyond reasonable doubt that two plus two make five, I am in fact wrong.
For me, god, or rather the lack thereof holds up to the same scrutiny and I don't feel morally obliged, brow beaten by progenitors or peers into subsuming my evaluation processes to simply fit into some draw back motif of unscientific fear of the unknown which leads to 'supernatural' rationalisation of the same.

Feel free to prove me wrong though.

Shinji

I love Christmas.

I'm an athiest.

I don't see this as hypocrisy. The midwinter festival was celebrated in Ireland long before and long after the alleged birth of Christ, and I have a deep suspicion that we'll still be putting up decorated trees, eating mince pies and turkeys and buying presents for each other long after the Christian religion becomes nothing more than a chapter in this history books.

It's the middle of winter, it's freezing outside, so we cheer it up by eating, drinking and being merry. Bloody excellent idea.

(Then again, I'm a strange type who genuinely loves giving presents as opposed to receiving, but there you go )

DeVore

I get to pamper my nephew and nieces a bit, hang out with the family for a decent time and chat to my sisters and parents about stuff over a few good meals and catch up on whats been going on in their lives in the previous year (not that we dont meet up every second sunday as well).

So thats what it is for me, a time for spending time with my close family. Nothing religious at all.
(My God doesnt have a publisher or a deal with Hallmark you see )

DeV.